The spasms of her own pleasure still receding and aware that she was probably never going to get another sexual education like this, Bianca plucked up the courage to ask him directly. ‘You mean, you don’t want me to?’ she questioned, unable to keep the confusion from her voice, and the silence which followed seemed to go on and on.
‘More than you will ever know,’ he answered in a strained kind of voice, before leaning back in his seat and straightening his silk tie. ‘But I’ve always found deprivation to be good for the soul. Particularly when—’
‘When, what?’ she prompted.
But he shook his dark head with an air of finality, as if he’d already said too much. As if he wanted to distance himself from her both mentally and physically. Why else would he slide to the far end of the seat as the car drew up outside the Granchester and the liveried doorman sprang to attention?
CHAPTER EIGHT
THECHRISTMASTREEwhich dominated the atrium of the luxurious Granchester was enormous and Bianca gazed up at its laden branches, blinking her eyes against its bright shimmer. The fragrant fir was decked with expensive lights and baubles and, according to the breathless commentary from the concierge who was showing them around, the tiny pink glass pomegranates were a nod to Zac Constantinides, the hotel’s Greek owner.
But all she could feel as she gazed up at its splendour was an aching sense of something which felt likedisappointment. As if recognising that nothing could be as magical as the beauty of the simple tree they’d left behind in Kopshtell.
Her heart was racing and her skin glowing as a result of Xanthos bringing her to that shattering orgasm in the back of the luxury car just now, but it had been curiously a one-sided experience. He hadn’t allowed her to touch him back and his expert ministrations had been delivered with the impartiality of someone who’d been following an instruction manual. It hadn’t felt as if he wereinvolved.
But then he wasn’t involved, was he? Not really. From the moment they’d left the airfield, he’d shown her a completely different side to his character. He was no longer the man who had whirled her breathlessly around the dance floor last night, but a powerful and sophisticated entrepreneur with untold wealth at his fingertips. From the moment they’d walked into the Granchester people had been practically falling over themselves to talk to him. And he was used to that. She could tell. Suddenly, his exalted status had become very apparent.
She was quiet as they rode the private elevator to their vast suite, with its floor-to-ceiling windows and glittering chandeliers.
‘Isn’t this an improvement on what we’ve left behind?’ he said, tugging off her coat and placing it on one of the giant leather sofas.
Bianca shrugged because her world had started to feel curiously disjointed. Here she was surrounded by nothing but opulence but all she wanted was to be back in that rustic hotel or even the snowy mountain hut, where their needs had been so basic and yet everything had seemed uncomplicated.
‘I suppose so.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘You don’t sound very enthusiastic.’
She shrugged. ‘I liked it in Vargmali.’
‘Then let’s see what we can do to make you like it here, shall we?’
He unzipped her jeans and peeled away her sweater—his economy of movement belying the slight unsteadiness of his hands. Very soon she was lying unselfconsciously on a giant sofa in just her bra and panties and he was walking towards her, stripping off his clothes and letting them fall. His body was clearly aroused—but the shuttered expression on his face was unreadable and she wondered if she had imagined that warmer version of him yesterday, or whether the mountain air had briefly gone to his head. She lay back against the heap of silken cushions as his suit trousers hit the silken rug and tried to focus on the moment. She could see the unashamed power of his erection and acknowledged, with a touch of incredulity, how amazing it was that her body could accommodate something as big as that. The perfect fit. Like Cinderella’s slipper, she thought dreamily as he grew closer.
‘Please don’t look at me like that,’ he instructed unevenly.
‘Like what?’
Xanthos felt his throat tighten even more. Like she wanted to devour him. Or bewitch him. Or to suck him deep inside her body and never let him go. But she had already done that, he reminded himself. She had offered him her virginity while he, in turn, had told her things he’d never told another soul. How much more of himself was he going to give this woman, and how much more of himself did he wish to expose? He needed to be in control, he reminded himself grimly—not relinquish any more of it to her, because of this strange physical alchemy they shared. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said abruptly. ‘Move over.’
She made room for him on the giant sofa and he distracted his wayward thoughts by removing her bra and her panties as slowly as possible—as if to demonstrate that not all his self-restraint had left him. Yet he couldn’t prevent himself from drinking in her nakedness as she lay there, as if he were seeing her properly for the first time. And maybe he was. In the hut, the temperature had been icy, their thick layers of clothing vital in helping keep them alive. Even in the rural hotel, the air had been draughty enough to make them snuggle beneath the old-fashioned eiderdown. But here in the centrally heated luxury of the Granchester, he was able to feast his eyes on her body for the first time.
And she wasincredible. Tiny and soft, her shape was curvy yet compact. Creamy breasts were crowned with nipples the colour of damask roses, and between her thighs a triangle of dark hair, which shielded the honeyed mound he had licked with such intensity. Caressing one lush breast between his fingers for an exquisitely long moment, he watched her emerald eyes darken and her hips wriggle with unconscious invitation.
‘I can hardly believe you were a virgin,’ he confessed slowly as he continued to stroke her.
The tip of her tongue roved over the cushion of her bottom lip and he wondered if she had any idea how provocative that was.
‘Because...because I wasn’t very good at it?’ she ventured.
‘It?’ he mocked.
‘Sex,’ she elaborated shyly.
Shaking his head, he moved his hand down between her legs and felt her squirm with pleasure as he encountered her sticky heat. ‘On the contrary,’ he murmured, his finger moving lightly against her responsive flesh. ‘You behaved as if you were born to it.’
‘I suppose everyone is, when you think about it,’ she answered, quite seriously, though the stilted delivery of her words suggested she was having difficulty concentrating when he was rubbing his finger against her like that. ‘Otherwise, how would the human race ever have survived?’
His response was a short and surprising laugh. For a woman to amuse him was rare enough, but to do so when he was just about to have sex with her was unheard of. ‘Tell me what you like best about it, so far,’ he questioned, with a sudden indulgence.